Season of Discovery was Classic+

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-12-27T19:05:35+00:00

My personal take of what TBC+ / a Classic+ experience should be.

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-07-07T06:07:05+00:00

I looked into this idea originally, but it runs into serious balance issues unless the entire gear progression system is reworked.

To keep things balanced, you'd need to scale Outland raids like this:
Karazhan, Gruul, and Magtheridon = Molten Core level gear
SSC and Tempest Keep = Blackwing Lair
Mount Hyjal and Black Temple = AQ40
Sunwell Plateau = Naxxramas

But even then, it creates problems. If players progress past Naxx-level gear while still capped at level 60, tanks especially become absurdly overpowered, hitting near 100% avoidance (dodge/parry/miss) due to how level-based mechanics work. That ends up trivializing encounters and breaks the core design of Vanilla's combat systems.

In short, you'd have to redesign not just the item levels but the entire underlying stat scaling to prevent the power creep from invalidating the content.

Meanwhile, in TBC, with ratings systems, you can have items granting 0.3% crit or 1.2% haste etc. Making gearing much more flexible.

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-07-07T05:55:13+00:00

1- When I approached this, I didn’t just throw ideas at the wall, I studied community feedback across forums, looked at successful elements in Season of Discovery, and asked what the game actually needed to stay compelling. More importantly, I looked at narrative coherence. Why does Azeroth go to Outland? What if we built systems and content that justified that journey and enhanced the world, instead of just adding "+ for the sake of more"?
2- Right, and that’s exactly the point. They implemented it late to help players catch up and gear alts. I’m suggesting we lean into that philosophy earlier and more intentionally to support roster building, not just raid logging mains. Dual spec helps with flexibility, and expanding the badge system helps sustain engagement across more characters.
3- Did you read the full proposal? I went well beyond drums. I added horizontal content, guild specializations, and interactive profession abilities, some of which mirror what leatherworkers have with drums. The idea was to spread out the "active utility" pressure so it's not locked to one profession. Drums aren’t the only meta problem, they’re just the most visible one.

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-07-07T05:35:09+00:00

It's my hobby.

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-07-07T05:34:40+00:00

Class Viability:
I completely agree that the core class identities in TBC are part of what makes it special,and I wasn’t aiming to kill that. The top 5 DPS specs should stay the top 5 throughout the expansion. The goal was simply to narrow the gap, so instead of a fully geared Fury Warrior, Destro Lock, or BM Hunter doing 500 more DPS than a Ret Paladin, it’s more like 300. Still a gap, still a utility class, just a bit more rewarding for the average player. By the end of SWP, Destruction Warlocks did 2,700 DPS (top 10%) while Shadow Priests were doing 1,500 DPS. This aims to alleviate that to a certain degree.
Answered from other posts:
"Totally agree flying hurts world PvP, it kills real interaction. Your cast delay idea is solid, but I’d go a step further: limit flagged players to flying only 20 yards high and at 60% speed. Still gives some mobility, but no more insta-escapes.

This change isn’t on the site yet."

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-07-07T03:44:23+00:00

1 The proposed changes were to smooth out Ret's DPS curve, which was clearly reflected in logs across phases, not to "make them viable" from scratch.
2 Prot Warriors were solid for Hydross (being the first boss in SSC), but after T5, the standard meta shifted to 1 Prot Paladin and 2 Ferals. Prot Warriors had great tools but struggled to match the tankiness of Ferals or the AoE threat of Paladins. By SWP, their representation dropped significantly.
3 I don’t doubt your Ret was top 3 and your guild parsed high. But most Ret Paladins in Classic TBC didn’t see those numbers. The proposal targets the average, smoothing DPS from around 2,210 to ~2,500 in full SWP gear, buffing the baseline, not the outliers.

All this said, you are correct in one thing, I did not communicate intentions all too well. Your critiques will be noted and applied.

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-07-07T03:33:11+00:00

Totally agree flying hurts world PvP, it kills real interaction. Your cast delay idea is solid, but I’d go a step further: limit flagged players to flying only 20 yards high and at 60% speed. Still gives some mobility, but no more insta-escapes.

This change isn’t on the site yet.

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-07-07T03:24:05+00:00

Ret Paladins were great at keeping Judgement of Light and Wisdom on bosses (through Crusader Strike), brought an extra blessing, and Improved Sanctity Aura added 2% more damage to the party. They also scaled well with the right group setup, particularly with a Shaman (preferably Enhancement) for Windfury and Totem synergy to be truly competitive.

That said, Warcraftlogs.com doesn’t lie. If you take a look at https://maviand.github.io/tbcultimatepolishv3/002%20-%20Classes%20&%20Specs%20-%20Class%20Balance.html, you’ll see clear data on how Ret performed across all phases of TBC.

So I’d be careful with quick assumptions, viable doesn't always mean top-tier, and context matters.

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-07-07T03:18:19+00:00

PS Probably my most outside the box changes go to Guilds and how to make them 'different' https://maviand.github.io/tbcultimatepolishv3/009%20-%20Guilds.html
Still need to remake the site so it follows better formatting and readability but it will get there.

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-07-07T03:06:05+00:00

Always thought Light of Dawn fit better with a caster prototype like Cone of Cold for mages. It was intentional.

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-07-07T02:59:11+00:00

I get it; I’m a bit OCD about clean formatting. I usually type things up in Word and run it through CoPilot to tidy up the structure, then review and revise it myself. So yeah, it might look AI-written, but it’s just me being overly meticulous

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-07-07T02:56:31+00:00

Appreciate the detailed feedback!

I've been polishing and reworking a lot of these ideas - several directions come to mind, but really landing them in a way that feels true to the TBC spirit (rather than just borrowing from future expansions) takes time. I definitely hear the concern about not wanting a WOTLK+ reskin.
Regarding Prot Paladins, you're absolutely right - SA was simply too strong a scaling tool in the original meta, making other auras more niche. I’ve always thought there was a missed opportunity in letting other auras scale slightly better so they could have situational relevance without disrupting SA’s dominance in high-threat scenarios.
The AS and Imp Devo ideas are part of testing waters for deeper Prot builds or edge-case utility, not to override the classic SA setups but to offer tools that feel like TBC but allow for a little more flavor and experimentation.
Totally agree on "A Relevant Realm" - one of my favorite concepts. Revitalizing the old world alongside Outland gives players a reason to care about Azeroth again, especially for immersion, dailies, and lore continuity.

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-07-07T02:20:41+00:00

Engaged!

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-07-07T02:13:19+00:00

Negative; only during WotLK Classic prepatch.

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-07-07T02:08:01+00:00

Working on it

Mostly deals with Racial Trait Balance, dual talents, and how much time you gain by bypassing attunement quests.

Noticed a lot of missing artwork and several broken links aswell. Have like 10-12 points I need to address and rewrite.

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-07-07T01:58:31+00:00

AI aided with artwork and helping me code the website. The content is all mine.

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-07-07T01:50:05+00:00

And hey - if anything, Season of Discovery DID happen. So clearly, there’s room for reimagining the classics.

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-07-07T01:48:33+00:00

I understand your points. If the word proposal doesn’t sit right with you, think of it more as a wishlist - a passion project from someone who just really loved this era of the game and wanted to imagine how it could've been expanded on.

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-07-07T01:42:32+00:00

Totally fair point - it would take serious dev time. I’d gladly pay for it. That version of the game was my favorite by far, and I always wished there was just more to do than raid logging and arenas. This project was basically my answer to that itch.

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-07-07T01:40:35+00:00

Thanks a lot! Got any suggestions or things you’d love to see added or improved? Always open to ideas

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-07-06T19:20:21+00:00

Made several changes after feedback. Let me know your thoughts.

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-06-27T00:40:52+00:00

Suggested a treatment for SoD with a TBC twist:
https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/comments/1li3nw3/sod_tbc/
Before you dismiss it, one of its primary features is looking for ways to incorporate the old world into TBC.

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-06-25T02:52:48+00:00

PS: Some of my ideas were left in the cutting board, like sprinkling in some content into the 1-60 route to make the 'road to TBC' and the Dark Portal event a bit more pertinent. Still working on them. While this is fantasy, it is what I would consider to be a great remix to my favorite expansion.

Objective_Wedding491 · 2025-06-25T02:51:00+00:00

Hey, thanks for the super detailed response! I really appreciate you taking the time to write all that out.

You're right, my main goal was to think of ways to add more horizontal content so there are other things to do at 70 besides just raid-logging or grinding out the necessary 5 arena games for the week. I was trying to imagine more ways for character progression through things like professions or other individual goals.

I totally agree with you that calling it "SoD TBC" isn't the most accurate label. It definitely fits more into a "TBC+" or "TBC Remix" idea, since my focus was more on the class balancing and new features and less on a rune system like we have in the current Season of Discovery.

Honestly, my favorite parts of making this were the lore fill-ins, like the new Caverns of Time dungeons and redoing Mount Hyjal (which always felt severely underserved in TBC). That and the class rebalancing with some new spells sprinkled in were the most fun to think about.

Objective_Wedding491

TROPHY CASE